Keeping Tabs on USASpending.gov

We've taken data from other federal reporting systems and compared it with just the grants data found in USASpending.gov across three categories: Consistency, Completeness and Timeliness. How close are the reported dollar amounts to the yearly estimates? How many of the required fields are filled out in each record? And how long did it take the agency to report the money once it was allocated to a project?

Failed Spending by Metric

How much spending fails more than one metric? This graphic depicts the overlap between metrics for the misreported spending. Overall, most spending only fails one metric, not multiple metrics.

Federal Spending We Measured

USASpending.gov doesn't include all government spending, and of the spending it does include, we only have comparison data for the grants and direct payments data. Below is a breakdown of federal spending and what portion of it Clearspending addresses.